Pat Quinn on Budget & Economy

Hardest Hit: affordable homeownership in Great Recession

Building the middle class means keeping families in their homes. Thousands of hardworking Illinois families were in danger of losing their homes in the Great Recession. But we worked to fight foreclosure and promote affordable homeownership.

We launched the Illinois' Hardest Hit program to help working families keep their homes. More than 11,000 families, in nearly every county, have received the foreclosure prevention support they needed.

We also launched
Welcome Home Heroes to give military families an opportunity to buy a home after sacrificing so much to protect our freedom. Thanks to Welcome Home Heroes, 1,150 military families have accessed more than $140 million to help buy their homes.

And we haven't forgotten about our neighbors with developmental disabilities. That's why we financed more than 2,100 new supportive housing units to provide individuals with disabilities more choices in their communities.

Restrain spending by $220B by Budgeting For Results

We have taken the first steps to stabilize our budget--with a comprehensive plan to restrain spending and reform state government. The first part of this plan is budget restraint--finding new ways to reduce unnecessary state spending. Since taking
office, I have reduced our spending every year. No area is above review. Last year, we enacted a landmark pension reform law--the most far-reaching public pension reform in our nation's history.

Over the next generation, we will save the people of
Illinois $220 billion. Our commitment to taxpayers is simple: we will only use tax dollars to provide necessary state services. All unnecessary state spending will be eliminated. We are looking at programs in a new way--saving taxpayer dollars while
improving the services we deliver. This new approach is called 'budgeting for results'. The spending reductions and program reforms I am talking about today are the result of our budgeting for results process.